This Web site displays the work of the students in the UMD Journalism 2001 Reporting and Writing I (Section 90) class, which meets Monday nights during Fall Semester, 2010. The work on this site was created by the students in the class and does not reflect the opinions of the University of Minnesota.

Hateful online comments need not apply

In the generation of social networking and reading the newspaper online, anonymous online comments lurk their way through these mediums with hateful and racial messages toward others.

An article written by John Hatcher, a professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, was published Nov. 16 in the local newspaper, The Duluth News Tribune. The opinion article stated people continue to make anonymous comments online. Hatcher believes online readers or bloggers should start putting their names next to the comments they make.

I concur with John Hatcher on his views of people taking credit for what they say. If people have the audacity to make hateful, racial, or any comments in general, I believe they should, for a lack of better work, man up to the comments they choose to make.

Hatcher stated that another article about some Iraqi Students attending the College of St. Scholastica brought hateful online comments. In addition, the comments were taken off, but Hatcher made clear that it does not account for the comments hitting the hearts of those students. Why would someone want to hurt other people, when they personally did nothing to you?

Hateful comments do nothing to help us grow as a nation. We are in the generation of acceptance but when we start to make anonymous, hurtful comments toward others of different ethnicity, are we really being accepting?

In the article, he stated that people think they are safe if they post a negative comment anomalously on a website because of federal regulation called the section Decency Act. He went on to state news organizations and social networking sites have given the identities of the people that choose to make those comments. I believe it is only right for those who choose to make such comments be punished for the words they use to immorally, degrade another.

As a nation, we should be so lucky to have the ability to make comments that any in the world can see. When a comment is posted online, especially a hateful, close-minded one, we should take the time to think before we post. I say as a generation of acceptance and growing, let us go back to our roots and put a name to the comments we make or it might land us in the hands of justice.